T-Mobile Offers $9.99 Micro SIM for iPhone

T-Mobile announced Friday that it was offering a Micro SIM card that AT&T iPhone 4 users (or unlocked iPhones) can use to make their device work on T-Mobile’s network. The card is priced at $9.99, though a two year contract will waive that fee.

“Already have a GSM phone or iPhone that you need to activate—or have an unlocked GSM phone you want to use on the T-Mobile network?” the company asked on its website. “Just get a Micro SIM card and choose a plan. Slip the ready-to-use Micro SIM Card into your phone and you’re ready to go.”

The Micro SIM cards are used by Apple only in the iPhone 4 and WiFi+3G iPads, but because of differences in the 3G technologies used by T-Mobile and AT&T, users would only be able to access T-Mobile’s 2G EDGE network. In addition, Visual Voicemail will not work on T-Mobile.

The company is effectively trying to lure customers away from AT&T with this product, and perceptive readers might be asking themselves right now something like, “But didn’t AT&T buy T-Mobile?”

Yes. The answer is yes, AT&T agreed to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion in March of this year. One might think that $39 billion would include a gentleman’s agreement to not poach each other’s customers, but then the deal still has months and more months of regulatory scrutiny before it’s approved, if it’s approved. Until then, it would appear as if all’s fair in love and subscriber courting.